The last major retrospective devoted to Constant Permeke took place in The Hague in 2004, so it is high time for a tribute to this distinctive Flemish expressionist. Permeke, who died sixty years ago in Ostend, had a unique empathy with the hard lives of fishermen and peasants, working people with an intimate bond with the land and the sea. By enlargement and abstraction, Permeke created archetypes with a universal character. An impressive selection of 130 paintings, drawings, and sculptures, including many key works, reveals every facet of Permeke’s oeuvre: female nudes, land and sea, fishermen and peasants in their everyday lives. Believing that Permeke deserves wider international recognition alongside his contemporaries, BOZAR intends to take this retrospective far beyond the borders of Belgium. New landscapes by Thierry De Cordier and nudes by Marlene Dumas underline Permeke’s contemporary relevance.